The cost of living
by sockets
Summary: There was a reason, that the Autobots, though amused by the vast majority of human science fiction, absolutely despised The Matrix.


**Fandom:** Transformers Bayverse  
**Author:** Femme4jack on livejournal (femme4prime on ff . net )  
**Characters:** Wheeljack, Perceptor, Alpha Trion, Ironhide, Will Lennox  
**Rating:** PG  
**Codes:** Xeno, can be read as possibly dub-con (not authors intent), Matrix style organic harvest  
**Summary:** Wheeljack's Backstory for the June challenge  
**Notes:** Written in the Point of View fanverse and used for the Dathanna de Gray fanverse  
This prologue is part of the Points of View verse, written by and , along with guest authors There is a comm with multiple authors on live journal which roll plays and writes fiction based on this 'verse. If you are interested in playing, reading, or simply following, look up the community .

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The Cost of Living

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There was a reason, Ironhide mused, that the Autobots, though amused by the vast majority of human science fiction, absolutely despised _The Matrix_. It was too close to home, though they had not yet admitted such to their new allies. The oldest of their cadre remembered a time when that fiction had been reality. When higher forms of organic life, not recognized or acknowledged as such, had been harvested into living generators to give strength to the sparks of their kind. Just as their systems could not survive without energon, a spark could not survive long term without a supply of what organics were able to produce through their emotions, perceptions and sensations...their very life force. It had been going on longer than the memory files of the oldest mechs, and had never been questioned because it was necessary for life itself to continue.

Ironhide remembered all too well the events that had changed their society forever, and had led to the war that had engulfed their planet and spread to so many others. Alpha Trion had created Wheeljack and Perceptor to be the most brilliant scientists in Cybertronian history. It had been Wheeljack who had finally discovered the horrifying truth about the creatures they had harvested. Wheeljack had a strange curiosity about the organics from the time he was a youngling, studying the generators to the point of obsession. On his first extraplanetary expedition, he discovered a planet with a suitable harvest, and had not relayed its location. Instead, he disappeared for vorns, _interacting_ with them, as though they were sentient creatures rather than needed commodities to be harvested. He even learned their languages, though none but he in that time would have recognized the noises that came from them as a sentient speech. However, the location was eventually discovered by others, and Wheeljack had gone insane, destroying the entire team as they attempted to begin the harvest. When Alpha Trion and Perceptor arrived to attempt to reason with him, they found that he had hidden tens of thousands of the creatures, refusing to share their location, and had created plans for a weapon that would offline every mech on the Cybertron should the practice not stop.

Had it been any mech save his most prized creation, Alpha Trion would simply have offlined him the moment he found him to keep the glitch from spreading any further. But instead, he humored his creation, linked with him so Wheeljack could share what he had learned, and discovered the truth that those before had been willing to face. Their harvests were of sentient, autonomous beings, who, though far smaller and weaker than their own kind, clung just as passionately to life as they did. What was worse was the understanding that the energy they had harvested was an energy based on the sensation of pain.

Wheeljack, Perceptor and Alpha Trion, working with the organics under Wheeljack's protection, had found a way. They could create an interface connection with a willing organic partner, a socket as it would come to be called, and the sharing of pleasure could feed a spark with a far higher-quality energy than the previous method. One willing socket, in symbiotic connection to its mech, could provide the energy of a thousand enslaved beings. In return, the organic had protection, education, a much increased lifespan, along with the sharing of pleasure beyond the organic's dreams. Thousands, when exposed to what such a symbiosis could mean, had volunteered to return to Cybertron, under Alpha Trion's protection, beginning the events that would change their society forever.

Many had willingly accepted the new arrangement, knowing somewhere in their spark that something was deeply wrong. But many more were appalled and disgusted, and for a time, both systems had existed simultaneously, leading to a growing rift in a culture that had always been unified and whole. Alpha Trion had then created Orion Pax, and had given him specific base programming to protect all sentient life, organic and mechanoid, and when Orion ascended to be Prime, his first first action as Optimus had been to outlaw the generators, an action which led inevitably to war as Megatron and those like him rose in rebellion against those who would insist that their very life would depend on a symbiotic relationship with what they found disgusting and unworthy of concern.

Eventually war had come, and because socket energy was so superior to that provided by the former method, the Autobots had a distinct advantage. They could go many vorns without a socket, while the Decepticons were forced to travel from galaxy to galaxy searching for sentient organics to enslave. However, there were far more Decepticons, and the balance shifted quickly as Optimus, following his primary function, stretched his forces thin to protect whatever life the enemy discovered. The launch of the Allspark had at least divided the priorities of the 'Cons, but the sweep of destruction across hundreds of galaxies had continued.

The price of peace, Megatron once had threatened, could only be a return to what was before, and for Prime and the Autobots, that price was far too high. That the war may very well have led to even more destruction and enslavement than peace and stability ever had weighed on them deeply. Yet, who, knowing the truth, could ever willingly go back? They had already chased the rabbit down the hole, taken the green pill as it were, and there was no return.

Ironhide sat with Will, trying to figure out how to even begin to tell him what needed to be said, absentmindedly stroking the new socket connection on the back of the Ranger's neck. Will had so trustingly agreed to it in the understanding that it would give him and his friend a better way to communicate during battle, which it indeed did along with multiple other practical uses, explaining why most of the humans on base had agreed to have them installed. Will had already enjoyed the more sensual benefits of the connection, but Hide had not yet marked Will as his symbiot, nor would he until Will understood what that would mean. His spark pulsed desperately inside of him, practically lunging out of its casing to connect again, to pleasure, to mark and claim... it had been long...far too long since the old spark had received the energy it needed, and more than that, had the connection it so desperately desired.

"Will. I must explain something to you," he began.


End file.
